


Love, War, and a Chance Encounter

by Eileniessa



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Adaptation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Battle of Sodden Hill, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eileniessa/pseuds/Eileniessa
Summary: Hey, come now, be still, I said. We're going to the old ruins on Sodden Hill, just as soon as those poor horses can take us there. They say there's a great force gathering there. They'll be able to help you. You must stay awake, though. Butcher, you hear me? Don't you go to sleep now, whatever you do!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 21
Kudos: 190





	Love, War, and a Chance Encounter

**Disclaimer** : This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, and the TV series by Netflix. I do not claim ownership to any of these characters and have written this fan fiction for entertainment, not financial gain.

 **Spoilers:** Spoilers for the Witcher Netflix, series 1

* * *

The world was a blur of moving colours and thick haze. He could smell the freshness of a forest, but it was mingled with a foul mix of blood, decay, and something in between. Everything hurt and nothing made sense. The image of a woman with red hair and a pale complexion passed like a ghost before him. He tried to move, to follow her, and heard a voice calling to him from the distance.

"Hey, careful now. Easy does it," it said. "You got bit, Butcher. You're delirious, but you're not dead. Not on my watch!"

Geralt tried to move again, but he felt something on his shoulder pushing him down.

"Hey, come now, be still, I said. We're going to the old ruins on Sodden Hill, just as soon as those poor horses can take us there. They say there's a great force gathering there. They'll be able to help you. You must stay awake, though. Butcher, you hear me? Don't you go to sleep now, whatever you do!"

As the world moved while he lay still, Geralt closed his eyes. He thought that he ought to listen, but he was too tired. And he didn't know what was real anymore.

* * *

The ruins were bustling with movement as workers scurried about, their feet wearing down the ancient cobblestone as they worked under the heat of a midday sun. Tissaia and the other mages joined the colony as soon as they arrived. There was a lot to do, to organize and to oversee. They needed weapons and supplies, as many as they could make, because magic alone wouldn't be enough. Few of her former students and the other northern mages had any experience of real conflict.

She was glad, then, that Yennefer had chosen this moment to come out of hiding. That she had joined them. The marbled floors and stained-glass windows of courts and noble houses, with their exquisite banquets and guarded walls, could not prepare a mage for war. Tissaia saw all too well, as did Vilgefortz, how many of their mages had hands stained with ink and wine.

They had waged battles from ivory towers with cheap magic tricks and piles of gold. Politics was a dangerous game played from afar, where the bodies were hidden so that blood wouldn't stain a mage's fine clothes. Moves are made in turns that are often weeks or months apart, and when the wrong move is made, death is rarely the result.

The same could not be less true of this battlefield. When Nilfgaard came, it would be in waves of black and gold. Tissaia did not know how many of the mages would flee or crumble, but she knew that Yennefer could be counted on. Her hands were already stained with blood, and life had been too cruel for the sharp edges of her ferocity to ever be rounded out.

Yennefer would not hesitate, and she would not run. The same could not be said of the others.

While Tissaia was inspecting the operations, carefully looking over the enchantments and ensuring that all the explosives were being handled and stored with the utmost care, a young boy clad in oversized clothes ran up to her.

"Lady Tissaia," he panted, "there's a merchant at the gate. There's a witcher with him, he says, and he's hurt. I don't know if he's telling the truth, but there's a body in his wagon and it ain't moving."

 _A witcher_ , Tissaia thought, _this is good_. She had never met one of his kind before, though she had learned as much about them as she cared to know through word of mouth and the dusty tomes buried in the darkest parts of Aretuza's library. If as little as half of what they said about these monster slayers was true, then the witcher could be a valuable asset to them.

"Take me to him at once."

* * *

At the gate, Tissaia spoke with the merchant and owner of the wagon. The older gentleman claimed that the witcher had saved him from monsters and been bitten him in the leg, sending him into a state of delirium. While Tissaia listened, she inspected the body in the back of the wagon and waited for Triss Merigold's arrival. She was the only sorceress that Tissaia knew had worked with a witcher before.

The supposed monster slayer was lying unconscious among the hay and the merchant's cargo. His hair was white beneath layers of dirt, and his face was worn with scars and hardship. On his left leg, just above the knee, there were two deep, curved marks that went deep into the flesh. The bite smelt of rot and decay and Tissaia had to step back from the wagon, feeling nauseous.

"Tissaia, they say you found a witcher," Triss called as she came bounding out of the gate, hair running wild behind her.

"Well, that's what I'm rather hoping you can tell me," said Tissaia. "Take a look."

She gestured to the back of the wagon and Triss clambered aboard, kneeling beside the body.

"I know him," Triss gasped, looking at Tissaia over her shoulder. She seemed troubled, more than the rectoress thought she would, or ought to. "This is the witcher who helped me cure Foltest's daughter."

"Do you think you can help him? He's been bitten, there, on the leg."

Triss followed Tissaia's gaze and shuffled across the back of the wagon. She placed her hands on either side of the wound and looked at it closely, her nose wrinkled, and her lips pressed tightly together. Then, she looked up and said:

"I'm not sure. When I tried to use magic to help Geralt heal last time, it didn't have much effect. I had to let his body heal naturally. And this wound, I don't know what's wrong with it."

Tissaia nodded and gestured for Triss to come down, which she did, after looking back at the witcher. "Do what you can, Triss. He might be of use to us."

The rectoress addressed several passing men and had them carry the witcher into a secluded area of the keep where he was placed on a wooden table covered by a few pieces of dirty cloth. After sterilizing the wound, Triss tried several incantations to help speed up the healing process, but none of them had much effect. Tissaia remembered that witchers were resistant to magic, but she found it difficult to believe that the wound's refusal to be mended was down to his mutations alone. She guessed that whatever monster had bitten him was either magical or venomous in nature, perhaps both.

While Triss worked, Tissaia summoned some of the other mages and more came of their own accord until a small crowd was gathered at the foot of the table. They shared what they knew of monsters, their knowledge scarce and founded mostly only tales and legends, and tried a few other spells. When the witcher woke up, Triss tried to ask him some questions, but he was dazed and confused, eyes darting around and his body twitching.

"What's going on?"

The group went silent and turned towards the voice at the back of the group. Tissaia couldn't see who it was, but she didn't need to. Yennefer's voice, like a crack of thunder, was as powerful and unmistakable as her bite. When she spoke, you listened, or be struck down.

"Didn't you hear?" came Coral's voice, her skellige accent coarse, "we found a witcher, and he's injured. Triss has been trying to put him back together."

"A witcher? Let me see. Move out of the way," Yennefer hissed.

The mages pushed themselves against the wall to let her pass. Yennefer strode up to the table, on the opposite side to Triss and Tissaia, and cast her eyes down to the witcher's face.

"Geralt…" Yennefer muttered too quietly for anyone besides the other sorceresses at the table to hear.

Tissaia saw her eyes, usually so cold and aloof, flash with an uncharacteristic mix of emotions. Yennefer took a step forward so that her black and grey dress brushed against the table.

"What happened?" Yennefer asked, her eyes still taking in the witcher's face.

Triss, who had been watching Yennefer with wide eyes, startled when she noticed Tissaia looking pointedly at her. "There, on his leg," she answered quietly, "he's been bitten by something."

"Do you know what by?"

Triss shook her head. "Not exactly. The merchant who brought him here said that the creatures came out of the ground and attacked him while he was trying to take care of the dead. Nilfgaard killed a whole camp of Cintrian refugees."

As she spoke, Yennefer tilted her head down and looked at the witcher's legs with her neatly pencilled eyebrows furrowed in concentration and her fingers absentmindedly brushing her pendant. Tissaia hadn't known that Yennefer knew witcher, but they hadn't spoken in years, not since Rinde. They were close, too. Yennefer might deny it, but Tissaia could tell there was more to their story than monsters and money, a lot more.

After a moment of silence, Yennefer looked up and addressed Triss as she fidgeted uncomfortably beside the table. "Bring me his things."

Triss nodded and picked up the saddlebag, passing it over the table to Yennefer. Setting it down, she went through its contents, pulling out several glass vials filled with different coloured liquids. Yennefer brought each one up to her face and looked at it carefully, smelling a few of them. Then, when she found whatever it was that she was after, Yennefer but the bag aside and held one of the glass vials by the witcher's lips. He turned his head away.

"Geralt? Geralt, can you hear me?" Yennefer whispered, the sharp cut of her voice softened almost beyond recognition. As she spoke, the witcher stilled and held his eyes on Yennefer's face. "I need you to sit still. Sit still, Geralt, and drink this."

The witcher drank some of the potion that Yennefer offered him without hesitation, and even when she poured in on his leg, making it foam and sizzle, he would not look away. He stared at the side of her face as Yennefer held her hands around his leg and began an incantation. After a few minutes, when the sorceress withdrew, Tissaia saw the wound was almost healed.

Triss, her lips parted, leaned over the table, looked at the witcher's leg and then at Yennefer. Tissaia could tell that there was something she wanted to say, but when Yennefer didn't look at her, Triss bit her lip and stepped back.

Yennefer wouldn't look at anyone, but said: "The witcher needs rest, but he'll be fine in the next few hours, once the toxins have left his body."

"Good work, Yennefer," Tissaia replied.

Yennefer nodded at her tersely then turned around to leave.

"Yen…" the witcher grumbled.

He was holding Yennefer's fingers loosely, and she tugged them free without looking back. The witcher's hand swung limply back to his side and he watched the back of Yennefer's head as she walked through the parted crowd and into the keep. Then, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

Yennefer didn't stop walking until she was outside of the ruins and away from the gate. She pressed her back against the wall and looked out over the forest with the stones digging into her shoulder.

She knew that she ought to go back and help with the preparations, but that chance encounter had gotten to her head in the way that only Geralt could. Why did he have to be here, and why did it have to be now? It had been a while since their paths had crossed by chance, and their timing was, as usually, painfully difficult. He was always there when she had things to do, always appearing where she didn't want him, but never being there when he should.

After their last meeting, Yennefer had wanted to forget. She tried to move on, and she had. When Tissaia had asked her for help, Yennefer had been prepared to die. Now, she wasn't so sure.

* * *

When Yennefer left and was long out of earshot, because they didn't wish to die just yet, the other mages began to talk. To Tissaia's everlasting disdain, it was a favourite pastime among many of her colleagues. She'd always supposed that it helped them deal with the monotony of their courtly duties, but she'd never much cared to find out. Education was her domain of choice, and she let politics enter it is as little as she could. Only with the fate of Aretuza hanging in the balance had the world of men taken her interest.

Before the chatter had really begun, Tissaia sent the mages away with a reminder that idle nattering was best saved for the warmth and safety of a castle's royal halls, and that it was not fit for the crumbling ruins of an eleven fort at the edge of the north. While they looked disappointed at being dismissed, no one would dare argue with the rectoress, so the crowd dispersed as the mages returned to their tasks.

Triss smiled gratefully at Tissaia as they left, and then walked off in the direction that Yennefer had gone. She was going to look for her; Tissaia knew she would. The girl cared too much. She wouldn't let Yennefer walk away even when it was the wisest thing that any of them could do. Still, she thought, Triss may have some luck. Her and Yennefer were an odd pairing, but it seemed to work.

With the witcher seen to and the mages back to their duties, Tissaia returned to oversee the work. Gradually, the sun fell behind the horizon and the ruins were cast into darkness. As the day's work was finished and packed away, Tissaia was informed, as she had desired, that the witcher was awake. She went to speak with him at once.

He was sitting on the edge table when she arrived, yellow eyes bright and focused, and his pallid complexion ghastly in the faint moonlight. There was a sword in his lap, its bright blade stained with thick, red blood that the witcher was trying to wipe away.

"It's good to see that you're awake, witcher," Tissaia said as she arrived, standing a few feet back from the table. Geralt looked up from his work and inclined his head politely, but said nothing in response, returning solemnly to his work. "I have a proposition for you."

"The answer is no," he replied without looking up or pausing his work. "I'm a witcher, not a mercenary. I don't fight other people's wars."

"Not even when you have a stake in them?"

"Nilfgaard's coins are as good as any other. I've nothing to lose if they win."

"That's not true, from what I see, you stand to lose a great deal. Perhaps more than you know."

Geralt paused and looked up from his sword, fixing his eyes on her face with his brows furrowed. Tissaia returned his gaze with a blank expression they feel into silence until the witcher got to his feet. He walked past her and stood on the outskirts of the courtyard with his arms crossed. When a gentle breeze blew towards them, Tissaia saw the witcher lift up his chin and smell the air.

For a moment he seemed to hold his breath, and then he sighed deeply and cursed under his breath.

"Talk to her, witcher, if you must," said Tissaia, "but Yennefer has already made her choice. Now, it's your turn."

* * *

It didn't take Geralt long to find her. He followed the scent of lilac and gooseberries across the keep and into the courtyard where people were gathering to enjoy the night. She was sitting on a low wall to the side of the crowd with a woman he recognized as Triss Merigold.

As he walked towards them, Triss looked his way, paused, then turned back to Yennefer. Over the chattering of the crowd, Geralt couldn't hear what was being said between them, though he imagined that he knew who it concerned. He stopped a few feet from where they sat and waited.

After a few moments, the two women got up and Yennefer began to walk away. Geralt followed, and when he passed Triss, she avoided his gaze, looking sideways at the forest with her arms wrapped around her. He could feel the nervousness about her, and when he was gone, Geralt knew Triss was watching them go.

Yennefer didn't look back as he followed her, and as they drifted away from the courtyard, silence fell around them. Geralt knew it well. It was the type of silence that filled a room and wouldn't be ignored. It begged to be broken, but it was heavy and suffocating. The silence filled the space between them as the walked up the wooden steps of a tower, and flowed over the edges of the balcony when they reached the top.

And for quite some time, it remained. Side by side, they stood at the edge with their eyes turned out to the forest. Yennefer's fingers were curled around the top of the balcony as she leant forward on her arms, the wind catching her hair. When Geralt tried to swallow, he almost choked on the lump in his throat.

"I thought you were a dream," he said, looking at her sideways. "A fantasy come to visit me in my final hour. But I'm alive, and you're still here."

"Only because I have to be," Yennefer hissed, pushing herself off her arms and following the edge of the tower. She stopped when she reached the side closest to the courtyard and looked over her shoulder at him as she said: "Why now, why here? Nilfgaard is coming. I should be preparing for war, but here I am, standing in this tower rather than being down there, because all I can think about is you."

Yennefer turned away, the moonlight shimmering across her hair. "Why can't you just let me forget?" she whispered.

"Because I never could. There isn't a day that goes by when I didn't wish that I was with you. I miss it, Yen. I miss you."

Before Rinde, every woman he'd ever taken felt the same as the last, and it had been enough, until it wasn't. The thought of her kept him up at night, a longing that no one else could scratch, though they'd tried. Because there was only her, always her. And he didn't want anyone else.

"How?!" Yennefer cried, staring him down, fists shaking by her sides. "The time we spend together is more painful than the moments we're apart. We fight, and we argue, and we make love. And then, one of us leaves – always."

There was a pregnant pause, and Yennefer looked away, drawing her arms close to her sides. "How could you miss that?" she mumbled unevenly.

"Because when I'm with you, I feel like I'm really living."

For a second, Geralt hesitated, and then he closed the space between them, standing beside her at the edge of the tower. Below them, he could see Triss talking with the lady who'd tried to enlist him earlier. When they had spoken, Geralt remembered thinking that she seemed to know more about them than he could imagine Yennefer had let on. Were they really that obvious? He found that hard to believe, but she had been right. He did have a lot to lose.

"Jaskier once asked me," he said, looking sideways at Yennefer, her expression hidden by the flow of her hair "what it was that a wanted from life. If it could ever be more than monsters and money. I said that I didn't want anything, but I was wrong. When we were in Rinde, when I made my last wish, I knew what I wanted. What we have between us Yen, is real. The djin didn't do that, because I didn't ask it to."

"Then what did you ask for, Geralt?"

The tip of her chin was lit by the faint glow her pendant made when she held it. Geralt reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hand Yennefer had pressed against her neck. The glow faded, and when Yennefer looked at him, he felt as breathless as the moment after he'd made his last wish.

"For your fate to be tied to mine, because I didn't want to lose you. I still don't."

Violet irises bright with an unusual warmth held his gaze, and the rest of the world disappeared. Yennefer smiled at him, and the tension between them seemed to dissolve as they kissed. It was a deep and passionate exchange, and he felt like he was really kissing her, his Yen, for the first time.

He watched Yennefer open her eyes as they parted, their forehead pressed together, the feel of her warm breath hugging his skin.

"Come with me, Yen," he said softly, brushing his fingers over her cheek as he held her face.

"I can't."

"Why? This isn't your war."

"No, it isn't, but I have to stay," Yennefer replied, glancing over her shoulder and into the courtyard. "Tissaia asked me to. She seems to think that they need me."

"And what do you think?"

Yennefer dropped her eyes to his chest and tapped her fingers against it. "That if she's desperate enough to ask me for help," she said quietly, "they must really need it."

Geralt didn't know much about war, but he could see why the other mages would want someone like Yennefer on their side. She was a formidable sorceress whose power was only outmatched by her control of the source. He knew that Yennefer could use magic under pressure, and a calm head and steady hand, whatever weapon a person commanded, often made all the difference in a fight.

"She asked me to stay too," Geralt said.

"And what did you say?"

"That witcher's aren't meant to fight other people's wars."

Yennefer laughed softly. "And they also say that they're indifferent, too." She moved her face as close to his as she could without touching it "But here we are," she whispered.

Geralt's body shivered. "Here we are."

Her every breath, her every movement, her every heartbeat, he could feel them all. Like she was a living part of him, the piece that made everything feel real. They made love at the top of the tower quickly and quietly, and with a gentle care that hadn't been there before. When it was over, they held each other under a silence that was peaceful and content.

After a while, when their bodies were cold and the talk and laughter below them had drifted away, Yennefer, her head on Geralt's shoulder as they lay on the floor of the tower, was roused from her stupor.

"Geralt," she said, "would you stay if I asked you to?"

"I would."

"Then I won't ask. I need you to stay because you want to."

"I want to stay, Yen."

Yennefer shifted in his arms, turning on her side so that she was facing him. She looked younger than he remembered, her face less worried and her expression not as closely guarded. He preferred her this way; happy and free. She was most beautiful when she smiled.

"Good," she grinned, tracing her fingers over his face, "because I want that too."

Yennefer lay back down, and after a while, he felt her drifting off.

"Yen?"

"Yes, Geralt," she mumbled.

"Who is Tissaia to you?"

"I'm not sure I know."

"Do you want to know what I think?"

"Go on."

"I think she might be your Vesemir."

"Yes… I think she is."

* * *

They were woken up during the night by Nilfgaard's barrage of fire.

Geralt's medallion vibrated so fiercely when Yennefer deflected the attack that it left a mark on his chest. Running out of the tower, Geralt helped get everyone awake while Yennefer stayed behind, watching for another ball of fire and redirecting when it came.

They spent the rest of the night with the other mages in the courtyard, taking turns to watch the forest, expect for Yennefer, who was excluded from the rotation. She wasn't pleased with the decision, but Tissaia insisted, and Yennefer couldn't deny that defending the keep had drained her. Geralt was still tired too and not yet fully recovered, and they fell asleep together, the other mages watching them with blatant and unabashed curiosity.

In the morning, Geralt, who was their last defence if anything got too close to the gate, joined Yennefer in the tower, his enhanced senses helping her keep a lookout and direct the others.

At first, things went well. The explosives that they had bottled sewed chaos amongst the ranks of the Nilfgaardians, and while they were at a distance, the mages' magic was strongest. Triss filled the forest with poisoned spores and Coral made bands of men fall at her feet. But the sun kept on getting closer, riding a sea of black all the way to the keep.

After the gate burst open, things started to go downhill. A portal appeared on the floor of the courtyard and unleashed arrows across the ruins. Men and women feel from the battlements and made a pile of corpses on the floor.

Standing by the open gates, Geralt tried to cut down the smoking Nilfgaardian mage as he ran into the keep, but he crumbled to the floor before his sword could connect. There was a small box beside his clothes and as Geralt peered at it, the lid snapped open and a mass of wriggling silver spilt out over the sides. The strange worm-like creatures darted away as he cast igni down on them. In a few seconds, he lost sight of them and for a moment he wondered if he should warn someone, but then he heard Coral's scream. There wasn't any time to go. Geralt left the box and ran out of the keep to meet the approaching soldiers.

He cut them down by the dozen, but they never stopped coming. After a while, Geralt was forced to retreat, diving through the plants that Triss had erected in the gateway. She closed the gap behind him, and Geralt stabbed at the soldiers through the plant wall as they tried to cut it down. For a while, they kept up the defence, and then an explosion rocked the walls.

Geralt stepped back into the courtyard as another explosion made the ancient stones shudder, and the air filled with dust, smoke and death. He saw Yennefer fall from the tower, and after looking back at Triss who nodded in understanding, he ran towards her. At the foot of the damaged tower, Geralt found Yennefer knelt beside the body of another sorceress who was sprawled out on the floor.

The hand clutching her stomach was covered in blood, a Geralt had to hold her still to look at it because Yennefer kept trying to walk away. She repeated Tissaia's name several times, and he saw her screw her face up in concentration as she had in the tower. But her telepathy failed, and she started stumbling towards the gate with Geralt in tow.

The smell of burnt flesh and rot assaulted the witcher's nostrils as they walked through the unprotected gateway. Triss was lying on the floor gasping, her head cradled by a man he didn't recognize, a path of tears running down her dirty face.

Yennefer quickly dispatched the remaining men just outside the walls, and then, quite suddenly, she stopped. Geralt saw her staring blankly at the floor, and he held her head and called her name until she looked at him. Supporting her with one arm, keeping his sword hand free, they searched for Tissaia.

* * *

"You're alive."

It was dark by the time they found Tissaia half a mile outside the keep. She was covered in dirt and grime, her hair a mess and her orderly clothes tattered and stained. Geralt stood a little back, giving them some room.

"Yennefer…" Tissaia mumbled, turning to face the other sorceress.

"Sabrina needs your help. We all do" Yennefer said, her voice brittle and uneven.

Tissaia, who Geralt thought looked slightly dazed, dropped to her knees. Yennefer followed her, shuffling closer to the other woman and holding her hands.

"No. No! The Northern Kingdoms are close. We can't give up." There was a slight pause, and Geralt thought he heard Yennefer's breath catch in her throat. "You... you saved me. I won't ever forget that," she sobbed.

"It's your turn, to save these people," Tissaia said calmly. "This continent. This...is your legacy."

"How? I can't!"

"You can!" she replied sternly. "Everything you have ever felt, everything you've buried..." Tissaia's face softened, a faint smile gracing her lips as she stroked the side of Yennefer's bloodied face with a gloved hand. When she continued, Tissaia whispered more gently. Perhaps, Geralt thought, even lovingly. "Forget the bottle. Let your chaos explode."

Yennefer closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Tissaia's, clutching her arm as she held her face. She held her hand as she stood up until it slipped out of her grasp.

"Stay with her, Geralt. Please," Yennefer added, noticing his hesitation.

He nodded and watched her slowly walk in the direction of the keep. The look on her face as she left made him feel sick. He'd seen it before, that glow in her eyes when her mind was set on something. But there had been something else there too, something worse. It reminded him of Rinde, and the moment that he had told Yennefer that she would die.

For a moment, he lost sight of her behind a rock and then the flames which had engulfed the keep began to disappear. Geralt turned to Tissaia, dropping onto his knees beside her.

"What is Yennefer doing? Tissaia! Tissaia answer me!"

"Yennefer… Yennefer is going to save us all," she whispered, looking distantly over his shoulder.

Geralt turned around and felt his heart in his throat. Yennefer was standing at the tip of the rock overlooking the rest of the hillside where the Nilfgaardians were approaching. Her skin burned with tones of red and gold, and he could see her body shaking from the power she was holding inside. It would kill her if she let it go. And if she used it…

"Yen!" He screamed. "Yen, don't do this! Yen!"

Fire raced towards him and he was engulfed in the heart of an inferno. The heat scolded the skin on his face and hands, and singed his hairs as Yennefer razed the hillside to the ground. He couldn't see her over the wall of flame, but he heard her screaming. Then, there was silence and the magic dissipated in a cloud.

Through the smog, Geralt squinted at the rock and saw that it was empty. Yennefer was gone.

He'd lost her, just as Borch said he would.

* * *

Even with the magic thrumming in her ears, her elvish blood pounding with magic, she heard him call out her name. But she didn't look. She couldn't. Yennefer wouldn't be able to do what we needed if she did.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Witcher Netflix story, and I do hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear your thoughts, so don't be shy about leaving a comment or a review (and give me validation… please?).
> 
> If anyone is interested in more stories like this, please see my work 'Bloody Entertainment' for information regarding my Bad-Things-Happen-Bingo Prompt Card. I'm taking submissions for The Witcher Netflix and the prompt I am currently working on is from the series.


End file.
